Honoris Causa
Six athletes took home All-America honors in the winter season. The junior nordic skiing tandem of Justin Freeman (Franklin, New Hampshire) and David Chamberlain (Wilton, Maine) finished third and sixth, respectively, in the men’s 10-kilometer classical race at the NCAA meet to earn nordic honors. Chamberlain also finished sixth in the 20-kilometer freestyle race. As a team, the Bobcats finished an all-time best tenth at the NCAAs. Freeman and Chamberlain, along with senior Katie Gould (Williamstown, Massachusetts), were also named All-East nordic skiers.Senior 35-pound weight throwers Paul Kolter (Hartford, Connecticut) and Spencer Potter (Waitsfield, Vermont) led the Bobcat men’s indoor track team to a tenth-place finish at the NCAA championships. Kolter finished second at the NCAA meet by throwing better than 56 feet, while Potter had a personal best of over 55 feet for fourth place.

Senior center Sarah Bonkovsky (Harvard, Massachusetts) became the College’s second women’s basketball Kodak All-American, earning honorable mention in a season that saw her named NESCAC Co-Player of the Year and finish with a Bates-best 1,407 career points. Bonkovsky and sophomore guard Colleen McCrave (Walpole, Massachusetts) were both named first-team All-NESCAC in women’s basketball, while Matt Garvey (Amherst, Massachusetts), was named second team for the men, ending his career with 1,921 points, tops on the Bates career scoring list.

Sophomore diver David Burke (Andover, Massachusetts) became the first diver and second male in Bates swimming and diving history to take All-America honors, finishing fifteenth in both the 1- and 3-meter diving events. He established Bates diving records on several occasions.

Two Bates athletes earned All-America honors last fall: First-year soccer player Kate O’Malley (Deephaven, Minnesota) became just the fourth women’s soccer player to be named All-America and the second to be named to the first team. Sophomore Adelia Myrick (Kodiak, Alaska) became the third women’s cross country runner to earn All America status, finishing fifteenth overall and first among New England runners at the NCAA meet last fall. In the winter, Myrick collected All-New England honors in track, winning the New England title in the 1,500-meter run. Her NCAA-qualifying time in the 1,500-meter run was a Bates record.

New England honors also went to All-America trackman Kolter and sophomore Billy McEvila (Hartford, Connecticut), who took third and sixth, respectively, in the 35-pound weight throw at the New England meet. Also collecting New England honors were first-year runner Matt Twiest (Albuquerque, New Mexico), second in the 1,000-meter run; senior Alec MacLachlan (Newburyport, Massachusetts), fourth in the 600-meter dash; and senior Steve Beardsley (Medford, Massachusetts), fifth in the 800-meter run. Sixth-place finishes went to senior Chris LeBlanc (Peacedale, Rhode Island) in the pentathlon, sophomore Peter Beeson (Novelty, Ohio) in the pole vault, and first-year runner Mike Danahy (South Windsor, Connecticut) in the 3,000-meter run. Six swimmers earned All-New England honors this year. For the women, the 4-by-400 medley relay team of senior Denby Johnson (Chanhassen, Minnesota), junior Dawn Bilodeau (Lewiston), sophomore Liza Loughran (Middletown, New York), and first-year breaststroker Liz Fey (Westport, Connecticut) took eighth (and Fey set a Bates record in the 200 breaststroke), while sophomores Damon Bowe (Houma, Louisiana) and Burke were multiple honorees: Bowe in the 200- and 400-yard individual medley and the 200-yard butterfly, and Burke in 1- and 3-meter diving. Both qualified for the NCAA championships, and Bowe’s All-New England times in the medley events were school records.

For the coaches, throwing coach Joe Woodhead has now coached fourteen All-Americans in eleven years at Bates, with Kolter and Potter the most recent. Nordic skiing coach Becky Flynn Woods’89 was named Eastern Intercollegiate Skiing Association (EISA) Nordic Coach of the Year for the second time in three years. At the EISA championships, her father Bob Flynn received the EISA Service Award. The men’s squash team, coached by Paul Gastonguay ’89, ended at 18-4, the most wins in a season for a Bates squash team, while John Illig’s women’s squash team finished 12th in the nation at 16-9, their highest finish ever. Al Fereshetian’s men’s indoor track team and Dana Mulholland’s men’s swim teams each won CBB titles, with the swim team beating Bowdoin for the first time ever on route to a 6-4 record.